Most of the websites we create include blogs. We consider them a critical component of most websites and most successful SEO strategies.

However, blogging usually represents foreign territory for our clients. They’re unsure why it’s important or what they should write about. And if they’re not IT people, the whole process can seem intimidating.

For those just venturing into business blogging, here’s a basic explanation of why it’s is so darn important — and some quick tips on what to write about.

Why blog at all?

First off, there are too many websites for search engines to monitor in real time. Therefore, how often they crawl a given website depends in large part on how often new content is added.

For example, Google might crawl your website after an absence of three weeks. If new content has been added since then, Google will be more likely to return after only two weeks. And if there’s always new content, that’s a sure sign to Google that someone cares about this website. They’ll start crawling even more frequently.

Conversely, if Google never finds any new content on your site, their spiders might not return for a month or even longer. That means your site is going to do poorly in search results.

So adding new content to your site is a critical way of promoting your search rankings. And what’s the easiest place on a website to add new content? Your blog.

What in the world should I write about?

Once our clients get the importance of new content, they’re willing to start blogging. The next stumbling block? Figuring out what to write about.

Here are some fail-safe suggests.

  • Client problems and the solutions you provided
  • New developments within the company — new employees, a new office
  • Developments within the industry — Is there a new product available? What technology is pushing your industry to change?
  • Fun topics — company parties, company pets, a particularly interesting project
  • Writing specifically for keyword phrases. For example, a client of ours specializes in exterior home improvements and is interested in acquiring roofing leads. He and I created an article on energy-efficient roofing solutions, frequently linking from the article to his roofing page.

 

How do I do it?

I’m not going to belabor this point. Suffice it to say that once I sit down with a new blogger and show them the incredibly easy GUI that modern blogging platforms provide, they’re sold. They can see the parallels between Word and WordPress, and see how easy it is to make the leap.

A final suggestion

So this is the basic information I give to our clients about getting started with blogging. One final suggestion: In terms of content, don’t limit yourself —remember that nearly any content is helpful.

After all, Google learned what you’re selling the first time it crawled your site. It also probably knows 500 other websites selling the same thing. Start blogging and differentiate yourself by out-content-ing your competitors.

Recently, I’ve been surprised to find that some of our customers are still uncertain about the value of optimizing their website for mobile.

It’s been a trend for a few years now. But let me throw down two statistics to explain why it’s increasingly important.

  • Today, 15 to 30% of all searches are done on mobile devices.
  • By the end of 2011, 50% of Americans will have a smart phone.

In other words, a ton of people are already trying to search for you via mobile. Those numbers are only going to increase. And before your website can function effectively as a mobile website, it must be made compatible with mobile devices.

Atomic can accomplish this task for you, a lot more quickly than you might think. Ready to optimize your site for mobile? Here are a few points to keep in mind.

  • Simplify. Make the layout simple. Complex graphics and unconventional navigation are lost on mobile users. What are the few critical pieces of information your customers need? Include that. Forget about everything else.
  • Resize. Make sure navigation links and buttons are large and easy to find. Your thumb isn’t as accurate as your mouse.
  • Prioritize. What content do you want your visitors to read? Make that the first thing they read. Users are much less likely to browse on mobile devices. They want to find the information they’re looking for immediately.
  • Technify. You’re creating a mobile site. So maximize the capabilities of mobile devices with features like “Click to Call.” Click-to-call lets a user press your phone number and instantly place a call —rather than having to exit their browser function, call up the phone function, and enter your number manually.
  • Streamline. Whether your goal is to increase phone calls or sales, make this task as simple as possible. If you want a phone call, break the process into three quick steps: provide a brief description of services or why a customer should call, offer an incentive for calling, then show the phone number (using click-to-call). If you want a sale? Provide a brief description of the product or service, let your user click to the product page(s), and then click again to checkout.

If you want to see the difference between an optimized and non-optimized site, compare Home Depot vs. Menards, or Smashburger vs. Applebees. The difference in usability is huge.

So ask yourself: Which way do you want your site to look?

Everyone knows that when developing a website, you want to think like a customer, not a marketer. You should build the site from the customers’ perspective, to address their pains, needs, and desires.

But there’s a huge gap between knowing you should do this and knowing how to do it. Here are a few techniques I use to “get into the customer’s head” and help create successful, customer-centered websites.



Imagine you’re a shopper. During the planning stage of your site, try to slip into the mindset of a customer. Think about their needs, rather than your own. Most business owners make the mistake of focusing too heavily on their own product specifications. They want to shove as much info as possible into the site—rather than considering what customers need to see before they can even get interested in a product.

For example, if you have a storefront, your customers’ priority might be as simple as finding out your hours and location. They don’t need a lot of product detail — they’ll come to your store to get that. Or if you’re selling high-end products online, customers might want to see your pricing up front. Only if the price suits their budget will they take the time to learn more about the product.

Get an outside view of your site. Pretending to be a customer is a good start, but realistically, it’s almost impossible to see your own site objectively. You’re too close to it. Start getting input from a third party—an interactive firm, a user research group, or even friends and family.

Often, an objective reviewer can spot gaps in your content or navigation almost immediately. Usually, those gaps represent your own instinctive understanding of the site content — an understanding that outside customers won’t have. In other words, you designed the site, and you “get” how it works — but no one else does.

Check out the competition. To get a fresh perspective on your own site, look at what your competitors are doing. How do they structure their navigation? Where do they place calls to action? How quickly do they introduce pricing—or do they introduce it at all?

Their choice aren’t necessarily the right ones. But seeing their approach can provide valuable insight—and again, help you spot gaps or flaws in your site that you otherwise wouldn’t spot.

If all else fails, remember three basic concerns that all customers have. Is your site easy to navigate? Is it easy to find what you’re looking for? Is it visually stimulating? If you answer “yes” to all three questions, you’ve gone a long way toward creating a customer-friendly site.

Selling products online seems simple: choose a shopping cart, price your merchandise, and watch the sales start rolling in.

In reality, there are a number of critical decisions you need to make before launching a successful e-commerce system. Here are 5 steps to get you there.

  • Organize your products. A surprising number of people who want us to set up an e-commerce system can’t tell us exactly what they want to sell. They’ve never made a comprehensive list of all their products. Before diving into e-commerce, start with the basics. Create an end-to-end product list in a database or Excel file. Include the product name, description, cost, weight, dimensions, and SKU number. You’ll also need product photos for each item. (Tip: Name each jpg according to the product’s SKU number to reduce confusion). Once you can identify everything you want to sell, we can get rolling.
  • Categorize your products. Think about how to organize your products into categories. If you’re a home store selling curtain rods, for example, should they go under Curtains or Hardware? Should a glass bowl go under Room Décor or Serveware? Or both? Choosing categories that reflect where customers will naturally look for products will ease frustration and promote sales.
  • Choose your software. A number of e-commerce options are available; you want the one that best fits your company, products, audience, size, and aspirations. You also need to ask specific questions. For example, do you sell to retail and wholesale clients? If so, your software must feature a tiered pricing structure. Do you sell thousands of different products? If so, you need enterprise-class software … and a sophisticated search feature. Will your customers buy via credit card or PayPal? The list of questions goes on. Answering each one helps us narrow your choices and identify the right system for you.
  • Determine the flow of your cart. The goal is to create a natural flow through your site – one that leads customers from an initial landing page to exactly what they want. To do this, you need to think about how customers would click through your site. What are the broad, top-level categories they’ll start with? (Electronics, for example.) What sub-categories will they expect to see under that? (Cell phones and TVs, for example.) What filters will they to use to narrow those subcategories? (Brand and Price?) Creating a logical flow will help customers easily find and purchase what they want.
  • Choose multiple products vs. a single product with options. Do you have a wide range of products available in different styles? (For example, men’s shirts in various colors, patterns, sizes, and lengths?) If so, you may want to set your cart up to have fewer products with multiple options. In contrast, do you sell products with options (such as color or fabric), but want to highlight the distinctiveness of each one? Then you may want to set each item up as an individual product.

This article should give you a sense of the many questions that come into play when setting up a successful e-commerce system. Before jumping in feet first, find a developer who’s a true e-commerce expert and work through these questions together.

The time you spend up front choosing the right system and configuring it properly will pay off in ease of use and increased sales in the long run.

Optimizing your website for search is a critical way of bringing visitors to your site. And you do that, in part, by matching the keywords in your site with the words that users type into their search engines. Sounds straightforward enough.

But finding just the right keywords? That’s another matter.

Tools like Google Adwords can be helpful in developing an initial list of targeted keywords and phrases. But there’s no way to predict exactly what phrases web users are going to search to find your site. And it’s difficult to predict what phrases Google will associate with your site.

The answer? Google Analytics.

After your site has been initially optimized and is up and running, you can use Google Analytics to learn exactly what phrases were typed into search engines to find your site. By regularly checking what phrases are attracting visitors, you’ll get a better idea of what phrases should be dominant on your website, and which to target. Often, Google Analytics will turn up phrases that would never have occurred to you on your own.

Here’s an example.

Say you’re a beanbag importer and you’ve optimized a page on your site for “Beanbag Chairs. ” But when you check Google Analytics, you discover that “Children’s Furniture” is unexpectedly attracting lots of web users to your site.

Now you have real-world data on how real users are getting to your site. Here’s what you do in response.

  • Search. The first step is Googling “Children’s Furniture” and locating the first page of your website that appears on Google. You’ll want to make this page your landing page for “Children’s Furniture.”
  • Adjust. Once you’ve identified that page, you can adjust the page’s meta data, content, headlines, images, and image alt tags to increase number of times this new phrase appears.
  • Observe. Over time, these adjustments should improve the Google positioning of your site when “Children’s Furniture” is searched, thus increasing the number of visits to your site.
  • Repeat. Monthly or quarterly, you should repeat this process, discovering what new phrases are taking hold and bringing visitors to your site. And you would adjust your landing pages and content accordingly.

This process is time-consuming and can be tedious, but it’s a critical part of a complete SEO process. Doing it religiously is the only way to ensure that your site stays aligned with what real users are searching for online.

testimonials

Nearly across the board, we recommend that clients include customer testimonials on their websites.

Testimonials allow you to incorporate an objective perspective on your business as part of your marketing. They let you showcase how great your business is — without having to say it yourself.

Here are some other reasons why testimonials are so important, and some tips on using them successfully.

Don’t be a salesman.
Yes, you need to include compelling features and benefits on your site. That’s marketing 101. But Nielsen studies have shown that recommendations from people you know or opinions written by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising.

So readers will take your marketing copy into consideration when they’re making a buying decision. But they’re more likely to be convinced by product reviews and testimonials written by other consumers. That includes everything from reviews on Expedia and Amazon, to case studies that include customer comments,  to customer quotes in the sidebars of a B2B site.

Include  testimonials that resonate.
Another study, this one by Edelman, showed that people trust their peers as the best source of information about a company. And the individual they most trust as a company spokesman is “a person like me.”

So when you’re thinking about asking customers to write a testimonial, think first about the potential customers you want to reach. Which of your current customers are most like your target customers? Try to include testimonials from customers who your prospects are likely to see as people “just like them.” Those testimonials will be the most meaningful and have the most impact.

Include specific results.
Testimonials are at their most powerful when they include tangible details. Check out this testimonial, for example, from a website we built for Burton Pools: Our in-floor cleaning system …  is now the talk of the neighborhood because it is so efficient and keeps the pool looking so clean and inviting. Larry helped me draw the outline on the lawn and spent a lot of time developing what we had in mind to do, while staying within our budget. Grant, Robert, Josh, Terrell, and Mark worked harder in the heat of the summer than anyone I have ever seen. Jessie even got in the cold water to monitor the in-floor system without a complaint. I had wanted a pool all my life and this is truly a dream come true built by a “dream team.”

If you had to choose between a builder with that kind of specific testimonial on their site, versus one with no testimonial, which would you choose?

Be real.
If you’re going to the trouble to include testimonials on your site, make sure they’re from real people. Reading a glowing testimonial from “Susan T. in Florida” is meaningless—even if Susan actually exists. If you don’t have customers who are willing to stand behind their testimonials with a full name (and, even better, a company and title), you probably shouldn’t have testimonials on your site at all.

And one final caution. Don’t even think about asking your marketing staff to pen bogus testimonials or product reviews. One company who did this is now paying out $300,000 in penalties to the State of New York. If they weren’t sure customers trusted them beforehand … now they know.

Want to talk to Atomic about developing strong content for your website?

Last week in Ohio, the temperature dropped to -3. The week before, we had two nights of freezing rain, followed by snow. Dayton was pretty much shut down.

But here at Atomic, things were business as usual. Development meetings, client meetings, preparing new designs… it was all good. Why? Because we were already using technologies that enabled remote working. So when we had to work from home for a few days… it was no big deal.

Remote working is becoming increasingly prevalent, across a variety of industries. But we think that some of the tools we’re using are making it more effective than ever. Here are two of our favorites.

  • We’ve used Basecamp for years to organize all of our projects. It provides web-based project management and collaboration, so everyone on our team – from designers and developers to clients and consultants – can see the same information, in real time. Basecamp also helps us keep projects on track – everyone can see the same schedules and milestones, and whether they’re completed or outstanding. It also lets us keep all the messages and files related to a project in one place – so they’re not spread across multiple hard drives and emails.
  • join.me is a free online meeting space that we use to hold staff meetings and client meetings. Join.me lets you “share” your screen with each meeting participant, so everyone can see the same thing you’re looking at and follow exactly what you’re clicking on. We use join.me in a variety of ways – to orient new clients to Basecamp, to train them on new content management systems, or to review wireframes and designs.

As Atomic’s “air traffic controller,” I also love the fact that projects don’t fall behind just because we can’t meet in person. Effective remote meetings let us keep things moving – even when snow, travel, or busy schedules intervene.

google adwords banner

Most people have a general understanding of AdWords—basically, any sponsored search results on Google.

But only a few people are AdWords Champions. I, apparently, am now one of them.

That’s because I recently passed Google’s Advertising Fundamentals Exam—a rigorous, strategy-oriented test that evaluates your understanding of how to manage an AdWords campaign. You get 120 minutes to answer 120 multiple choice questions, and you need 85% correct to pass. So there’s no messing around.

Passing the exam certifies me (and Atomic) as an expert on the basic aspects of Google AdWords as well as AdWords account management and the value of search advertising.

This expertise is important because more and more businesses are using AdWords as part of their marketing campaign. Because AdWords appear immediately on Google, they’re often preferred to organic SEO for businesses who need to enhance awareness or drive sales quickly. But because AdWords are becoming so pervasive, the keyword phrases used to generate ads are getting more competitive—making clicks more expensive.

So these days, you literally can’t afford to have a half-baked AdWords strategy. You’ll blow your budget before you even get started.

Our understanding of AdWords helps you to:

  • ensure that your ads appear on page one of Google for the lowest CPC (cost per click) possible.
  • ensure that your ads have the highest CTR (click through rate) possible. The CTR is the percentage of times an add is clicked when it shows on Google.
  • ensure that your ad clicks turn into conversions – whether onsite sales, PDF downloads, or contact forms.

In short, that means you get the most bang for your AdWords bucks.

I’m now on to my next project: pursuing certification in Google Analytics. I’m hoping to take and pass that test shortly after the new year. So for the holidays this year, I guess I’ll be studying. Merry Christmas, everyone, and talk to you in the new year.